A Centre County commissioner is gaging interest about a proposed county ordinance that would increase taxpayer vehicle registration fees by five dollars.

It’s a tactic Commissioner Michael Pipe hopes would help fund local transportation projects.

Right now, Centre County taxpayers pay $36 dollars to register passenger vehicles in Pennsylvania. Motorcycles are $18, trucks between $62 and about $2,000.

As of April 2016, Centre County had 117,400 registered vehicles.

“If all of those vehicles would register at an increase of five dollars, we’d have an additional $587,000 a year,” Pipe said. “Then of course, we put out about $187,000 a year in liquid fuels money that we get to the state, so we’d have about three-fourths of a million dollars in annual county government investments in transportation projects.”

As of January first, Pennsylvanians are taxed $0.58 per gallon at the pump. Commissioner Steve Dershem thinks this five dollar increase would be too much to ask of taxpayers.

“When is enough, enough? I think we’re going to have to do a lot of soul searching to decide how much you can go back to the taxpayers to fund things,” Dershem said. “I understand things need to be built and refreshed, but I can’t say I don’t have concerns about that.”

In 2013, Act 89, also known as the Transportation Bill, was signed into law by then-Governor Tom Corbett. It pledges about $2.3 billion in new revenue for Centre County transportation funding by 2020.

According to PennDOT’s website, 118 projects will be complete in Centre County at about a one-billion dollar price tag.

“If we were to enact the five dollars, is this going to be valuable,” Commissioner Mark Higgins said. “Do you have projects that you have been waiting years for that are important that this funding would assist with? I would want to make sure it’s used and used quickly.”

There are 14 counties in Pennsylvania that already have this five dollar registration fee. Two of those counties are in our region — Blair and Cambria counties.

Commissioners plan to pitch the increase idea to local municipality officials and they’re asking for community feedback, too.